Evaluating Conceptual Coherence in Multi-Modeling Techniques

Abstract

Meta-modeling is a well-known approach for capturing modeling methods and techniques. A meta-model can serve as a basis for quantitative evaluation of methods and techniques. By means of a number of formal metrics based on the meta-model, a quantitative evaluation of methods and techniques becomes possible. Existing meta-modeling languages and measurement schemes do not allow the explicit modeling of so-called multi-modeling techniques. Multi-modeling techniques are techniques that offer a coherent set of aspect modeling techniques to model different aspects of a certain phenomenon. As a consequence, existing approaches lack metrics to quantitatively assess aspects that are particular to multi-modeling techniques. In this chapter, a modeling language for modeling multi-modeling techniques is proposed as well as metrics for evaluating the coherent set of aspect modeling techniques that constitute the multi-modeling technique.